bch@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Byron C. Howes) (09/27/88)
In article <4910@juniper.uucp> yelorose@juniper.UUCP (Bob Mosley III) writes: >...this brings up a good point: If the admin of a particular problem site >refuses to take action and supports its problem users, what recourse is >there? With all the problems coming from Portal, there must have been some >sort of procedures set up to dispose of them accordingly. I'm not going to join the ranks of the Portal bashers. Whatever sins the users at Portal may or may not have committed they have been drowned out in both annoyance and cost by the responses. Portal's biggest problem seems to be an arrogant bureaucracy that informs neither its own users nor its fellow sites. Still, the obvious way to deal with a problem site is to cut them off the net. The place to apply pressure is to those sites who exchange mail and news with the offending site. I daresay that an instransigent sysadmin is going to pay attention when his news and mail feeds threaten to cut him off. I would have thought this was obvious. -- Byron C. Howes Computer Systems Manager bch@uncecs.edu UNC Educational Computing Service
yelorose@juniper.uucp (Bob Mosley III) (09/28/88)
In article <5422@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> bch@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Byron C. Howes) writes: > >Still, the obvious way to deal with a problem site is to cut them off >the net. The place to apply pressure is to those sites who exchange >mail and news with the offending site. I daresay that an instransigent >sysadmin is going to pay attention when his news and mail feeds threaten >to cut him off. > >I would have thought this was obvious. > ....actually, this solution IS pretty obvious. ....then again, the easy way out it not often the best way out. CIP: Once upon a time, I used to be a Bitnet Relay Junkie, and one of the problems most of the relay ops faced on a nightly basis was that of the CUNY link (City University of New York?). As it was explained to us, CUNY used some sort of group account method for computer access, and that in order to kill a problem user off of the relay ("Banning"), the entire account woudl have to be killed. The only other alternative would be to shut CUNY off of the relay altogether. This would have effectively disconnected the entire Eastern seaboard from the relay. ...now, as for what this has to do with Portal, it's obvious now that Portal can be considered a major hub of sorts in the net, and that to punt this system off without setting up alternative netpaths would in effect cripple a section of the net (I'd have to look at the paths to and from Portal to determine the damage from a blind strike as opposed to a surgical procedure :-)). As with CUNY, to remove Portal by snapping one's fingers would cause more problems that it would solve. ...now, I'm not advocating ignoring the problem by a long shot! I'm merely suggesting that the problem be looked at not with the intent to "reabilitate" the problem users, which is obviously not going to happen anytime soon with the Portal Admin's "Laisez-Faire" attitudes. Other measures are going to have to be taken. ...to quote a friend on Talk.Bizarre (where we get more garbage from Portal than any other group): "Removing Portal is like a removing a cancer. In order to get rid of it, some healthy tissue must be sacrificed as well." Grantedm there may be serious and polite users on Portal, but when the Portal admin won't act on a situation such as this, then they will have to be sacrificed for the good of the net. OM
dorn@fabscal.UUCP (Alan Dorn Hetzel) (09/28/88)
"Portal a major hub in the net" !! Don't make me laugh. Go look at your map data. Portal only talks to five or six sites (maybe a few more now), and most (maybe all) of them have other feeds. Maybe you were thinking of uunet... Now THERE'S a HUB. Or maybe I'm confused, but I don't think so. Dorn gatech.edu!fabscal!dorn
tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) (09/29/88)
If Portal feeds the net via uunet, then only uunet management can deny them access, unless you feel like cutting off uunet that is :-) -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: t.neff (no kidding)